I think what's impressed me about Jaylen Brown recently is that he is showing growth in a number of different offensive areas. He has began showing some more consistent advanced dribble moves both in transition in half court. The between the legs crossover he had a couple weeks ago, the inn and out dribble on the dunk against Kristaps being examples. He has demonstrated a more varied 3pnt arsenal including hitting some shots coming off screens or on step backs in Iso situations (the wizards OT shot for example). He's done a much better job finding guys for kick outs on drives or dump offs when he gets penetration. And then as Lowe as pointed out he's shown at least some promise in pick and roll. Obviously he's still raw with a lot of these skills, but the fact that he's showing them more means he's developing them. You can begin to see a path on how he could reach all star level offensive output if he continues to make gains in these areas.
Yeah, for all the criticism his handle gets, I think it's actually pretty strong. His problem is reading defenses. He often dribbles into traffic or he'll spin right into a defenders chest instead of around them. Things like that. That's not a problem with his ball control, it's his decision making.
This is a good point; if he were able to pick his spots more effectively I think he would improve his efficiency at getting to the rim. Once he's at the rim, he's a difficult guard and can challenge most NBA bigs with his explosiveness and power.
I think his dribbling has improved from last year, but where I think he struggles is in traffic; he tends to keep the ball too high while maintaining his dribble, and then brings it too low when taking his two steps. I do not have the statistics for how many times he has had the ball swiped at during his gather-and-jump, but I imagine it's high. If he improved his ability to control the ball within a congested space, he'd again improve his efficiency at getting to the rim.
And all of these areas of improvement come with time. As Celtics fans, I think we're lucky to have a prospect who already has other parts of the game figured out (e.g., individual defense, rebounding, post-scoring) and athleticism that cannot be taught; the small stuff is easy to pick up given the amount of game he already has.